Superstorm Research Laboratory Social and Environmental Justice Internships

by Max Liboiron on January 21, 2013

The Superstorm Research Laboratory (SRL) at NYU is looking for interns during the spring and summer semesters for hands-on social and environmental justice research. Our goal is to explore narratives about three substantive topics of contemporary concern—inequality, climate change, and urban governance—and their relationships to one another within the context of Hurricane Sandy. Our principal method will be to interview stakeholders from across the city—policy actors in different state agencies, engaged business people, members of relevant NGOs and other civil society institutions, professional and volunteer first responders, and residents in Zone A, especially in the Coney Island Area.

As a mutual-aid research collective bound by a community agreement, SRL is a unique group whose interactions with fellow researchers, interns, and interviewees reflect a commitment to social justice. Depending on the scope of interns’ involvement, they will gain valuable experience within SRL’s unique research collective environment, including research methods, how to collaborate with other researchers using social justice values, interpretation of data, events planning, web design, curriculum design, the preparation of public reports, and other forms of outreach to the NYU community. We strongly encourage you to apply before January 25, though we will also accept applications on a rolling basis.

Interns will be trained in various research roles, depending on the semester hired, including:

interviewing stakeholders

methods for taking research notes at public meetings and other events

coding interview transcripts and public documents

interpretation of interview data

ethics of research for environmental and social stakes

facilitating research meetings using social justice protocols

In addition to research, interns may participate in other key aspects of the project, such as the following:

the design and construction of an online archive of the data and public reports that we produce

planning public events for stakeholders from around New York City

consultation and planning of mini-curricula on Sandy’s aftermath for use in classroom settings

assisting in the production of a public report featuring our group’s data, as well as data gathered and analyzed by other research projects around New York City

making and tracking contacts with key stakeholders in New York City

cowriting research articles

Desired skills (please specifically address these in your cover letter (note, we do not require one applicant to possess them all!):

Dates and Time commitments:
January 26, 2013 – May 2013, and summer of 2013 if desired.

We welcome interns at any point during this time frame. Note that interviews will occur mainly in January and early February, and coding and other tasks will occur afterwards.

Interns will work 1-10 hours a week, with some weeks having much heavier work loads than others. We will attempt to accommodate your schedule. Note that heaviest workloads will be at the beginning and end of the spring semester.

Please send us your application by Jan 25th (though we will also accept interns during the semester if we have space and work available). In your cover letter, specifically detail which of the above skills you have, what your main area of interest or research is in relation to Hurricane Sandy, and your earliest available start date.

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Superstorm Research Lab is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. This data may be shared, copied, distributed and used free of charge provided you attribute the source of the data to Superstorm Research Lab within the work you produce.If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one (Creative Commons, CopyLeft, or Open Source), meaning the work must remain free, open, and the data must be attributed to SRL.

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